Recent Opinions

The world is full of unsolved problems. It is also full of problems for which solutions already exist, if we only leverage them. When we slow down for a minute, consider the available options, and more carefully assess the consequences of various modes of action, we have a better chance of directing our efforts where they ought to go–for the good of ourselves and the issues we face.

Matthew Cohen ’18 and Johnathan Bowes ’15 debate whether Puerto Rico should become the 51st state in the United States. Cohen urges us to question the previous votes in Puerto Rico as well as its tremendous debt while Bowes argues the US should respect the will of Puerto Ricans in whatever they choose.

StartX, a Stanford-based startup accelerator and entrepreneur network, received an $800,000 grant from the Kauffman Foundation this August to expand. Most of the money will be allocated to current programming in Palo Alto, but StartX will also be looking to replicate its program in other parts of the country.

The Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City-based organization that allocates money to entrepreneurship and education programs nationwide, has an asset base of $2 billion and provided $55 million in grants last year. The foundation’s staff visited StartX’s Palo Alto office on a recommendation from a StartX program mentor, and they came away impressed.

“I think that the team that is working on StartX right now is tremendous,” said Wendy Torrance, an entrepreneurship director at the Kauffman Foundation. “They have a lot of energy, are incredibly smart and have developed a very interesting model for founder education.”

“Most [startup accelerators] charge 6 to 10 percent equity of your company,” he said, while StartX currently takes no equity from companies it assists.

“We showed them our methodology, how we operate, how we educate founders, how we do it with mostly a team of Stanford students and the results that we are getting. They were kind of blown away.”

In fall 2011, StartX submitted a grant proposal to the Kauffman Foundation asking for $740,000 in funding. The foundation announced the approval of the grant, adding an extra $60,000 for hiring a documentation employee.

“StartX has developed a terrific founder’s education program,” Torrance said. “I see in them great potential to strengthen that program and bring their model to other locations around the country.”

Some of the grant will be spent on investigating ways to expand StartX nationally, though Teitelman said that a large portion of the grant will provide financial support for companies in StartX’s existing program, which runs three times a year.

“Basically, the point of the grant is to explore how we want to replicate, whether that means building programs with other universities or just giving people our material,” he said. “We have some milestones with [Kauffman] that we have set, but things aren’t too strict. It’s more that we figure out how to make our model have a more expansive impact.”

The grant has allowed for more support for StartX Med, a new division of the company that focuses on work with medical and biotech startups. StartX Med founder Divya Nag ’13 said the program reflects StartX’s desire to offer education and assistance to a wider variety of startups.

“Going forward, StartX wants to establish itself as a place that can support any type of entrepreneur,” she said.

Sam Purtill ’13, who went through the StartX program with his company ClassOwl in the summer of 2011, believes the foundation’s grant will go to a worthwhile program that helps Stanford entrepreneurs take the next step.

“Companies that have raised money in StartX…are being talked about inside venture capital firms, which is really all that matters,” he said.

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Carrying forward the interest in contemplation both at Windhover and during Contemplation by Design week, the Office for Religious life and HIP are collaborating to offer a labyrinth walking fundamentals [...]

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Carrying forward the interest in contemplation both at Windhover and during Contemplation by Design week, the Office for Religious life and HIP are collaborating to offer a labyrinth walking fundamentals workshop. This 2-session program will provide you with knowledge of the rich history and stress reduction and resilience-building benefits of the contemplative practice of labyrinth walking. Each session will begin in the classroom followed by a practicum of walking the Windhover labyrinth. Class will be held rain or shine. Please dress accordingly. Please note: registration required for this free class.

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COMFORT WOMEN WANTED brings to light the memory of 200,000 young women, referred to as “comfort women,” who were systematically exploited as sex slaves in Asia during World War II, and increases awareness of sexual violence against women during wartime. It is based on interviews with Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Filipino, and Dutch “comfort women” survivors and a former Japanese soldier from WWII conducted by the filmmaker, Chang-Jin Lee, a Korean-born visual artist from New York City.

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We are a social action VSO and bake challah bread on Thursdays at Hillel in the back building (across from the Haas Center). The proceeds this week go to MAZON: [...]

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We are a social action VSO and bake challah bread on Thursdays at Hillel in the back building (across from the Haas Center). The proceeds this week go to MAZON: a national non-profit working to end hunger among all faiths and backgrounds. We work with a variety of groups around campus, including social action groups, interfaith groups, and Greek life. Everyone is welcome to come join us in making challah.

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The Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics announces the second mini-course by Stanford physics faculty on recent fundamental advances in theoretical physics. The winter quarter's lectures will be by Professor Sean [...]

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The Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics announces the second mini-course by Stanford physics faculty on recent fundamental advances in theoretical physics. The winter quarter’s lectures will be by Professor Sean Hartnoll.

Black holes have the remarkable property of irreversibility: if you fall into a black hole you can’t get out (classically). This immediately suggested a connection with the other famous irreversibility in physics: the law of increase of entropy. Since the 70s, this connection between black holes and thermodynamic systems has been fleshed out in increasing detail and has lead to surprising conclusions. I will give an introduction to a recent body of work showing how black holes can in fact be used to shed light on exotic materials of interest in condensed matter physics, including the still-not-understood high temperature superconductors.

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THE LADY ONSTAGE explores the life and work of Olga Knipper, a name unfamiliar to most, but perhaps best known as “Chekhov’s wife”. Olga was a key creative genius in [...]

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THE LADY ONSTAGE explores the life and work of Olga Knipper, a name unfamiliar to most, but perhaps best known as “Chekhov’s wife”. Olga was a key creative genius in the history of modern theatre; she was not only the originator of the leading female roles in Chekhov’s four major plays, but also became the de facto chief representative of the Moscow Art Theater when they toured the United States. THE LADY ONSTAGE takes us into the psyche of an actress at the moment when theater changed forever, giving us an inside perspective on the radical choices artists make in the name of Art and Love.

March’s Rough Reading presents an intimate reading of Erin Bregman’s new play in early draft form, offering audiences a rare opportunity to engage directly with the artistic process of bringing a play to life. Produced by Playwrights Foundation in partnership with the National Center for New Plays at Stanford.